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What Will Microsoft's "Embrace" of Open Source Actually Achieve?
Nerval's Lobster writes Back in the day, Microsoft viewed open source and Linux as a threat and did its best to retaliate with FUD and patent threats. And then a funny thing happened: Whether in the name of pragmatism or simply marketing, Microsoft began a very public transition from a company of open-source haters (at least in top management) to one that's embraced some aspects of open-source computing. Last month, the company blogged that .NET Core will become open-source, adding to its previously open-sourced ASP.NET MVC, Web API, and Web Pages (Razor). There's no doubt that, at least in some respects, Microsoft wants to make a big show of being more open and supportive of interoperability. The company's even gotten involved with the .NET Foundation, an independent organization designed to assist developers with the growing collection of open-source technologies for .NET. But there's only so far Microsoft will go into the realm of open source—whereas once upon a time, the company tried to wreck the movement, now it faces the very real danger of its whole revenue model being undermined by free software. But what's Microsoft's end-goal with open source? What can the company possibly hope to accomplish, given a widespread perception that such a move on its part is the product of either fear, cynicism, or both?
They are trying to leverage their IP to get more people to buy or subscribe to their products. There's nothing wrong with that; it actually helps developers.
The idea is that if you make it easy for developers to do good stuff on your platform, they are more likely to do good stuff on your platform. Then end-users who want the good stuff will buy the good stuff from the developer and the platform from you.
Give them a taste for free, then when they're hooked, gouge them.... Visual Studio and .Net do tend to be well received by everyone. The consensus is that it's a good product and a pleasure to use. The only problem with it is that you have to run it on Windows. So, perhaps the plan is to support .Net on Linux for a while, then yank the support for Linux away and force everyone back to Windows and SQL Server or rewrite their application for another platform.
What has changed is that open-source is no longer a threat to Microsoft. It was a threat when Windows competed against Linux for the desktop and for the server. But today, Microsoft doesn't care about Windows and has re-invented itself: Microsoft lays its hopes on Azure.
All this open-sourcing of .NET is to entice people to use .NET and thus use Windows Azure. By eliminating the stigma of being closed and proprietary, they eliminate the #1 objection to using .NET. This openness goes both ways: not only is .NET opening, but Azure is supporting other stacks: node and LAMP for example. They don't care what tools you use anymore, they just want your hosting business.
Microsoft's new competitors are OpenStack, Amazon, and other cloud service providers. They will compete with those providers by trying to have the cloud platform that supports the most tools and the easiest process to get stuff into the cloud.
I don't know; the market looks very different than it did back in the Halloween Email days. There are two things going on here: 1) Ballmer and Gates are out at MS, and 2) server OS market share is not as important as sales of cloud services. It isn't what you're running on your box that they're interested in, anymore, it's what you're connecting to for your business layer. If they can get *nix customers connecting to Azure on .NET, I think they'd call that a win.
Historically, being embraced by Microsoft has often been deadly...
True in the 80s and early 90s, but today Microsoft is pretty responsive to their partners and that role has more been taken on by Amazon. I hear Amazon basically data mines business partners who sell on their site to undercut prices on everything except for certain narrowly agreed products.
It's a good business model for Amazon's move to gather more market power, which will give them a near-monopoly in the end. They're definitely playing the long game. But it's not a good move for their partners.
They've open sourced a lot of stuff that they're having trouble getting anyone to use.
Back in the day, Microsoft viewed open source and Linux as a threat and did its best to retaliate with FUD and patent threats.
then in 2013 Microsoft suffered a loss of more than US$32 billion and in 2014 it fired, er "layed off" almost 20,000 employees. faced with life support options of XBox earnings and corporate licenses, it excreted another phone no one wanted and held its breath. then it lost another 300 million on its nook investment and 676 million on the surface tablet in 2014. Then it remembered how well litigation as a business model worked for SCO.
microsoft is embracing Open Source in much the same way you embrace that creepy uncle that touched you as a kid during thanksgiving. Its a truce, because a patent war against amorphous things like windowing, clicking, or startup noises would haul big guns like apple and google into court, not just samsung and tomtom, and they would face the very real possibility of losing unchallenged but indefensible patents so its best to keep that paper tiger in the desk drawer. Their best bet is to hope people think Microsoft non OSI "open source" licenses can make some headway, and that people stop talking about BSD and GPL. Gobbling up more video games would do it well, but the innovation ship has sailed at redmond and there arent many options left for real growth. Watch for it to become a clearing house of small game studios and dessicated open source projects long since forked by dedicated dev groups that have very sour memories of Redmond. Microsoft knows it can expect businesses to pony up protection money but once Google or Ubuntu unveil an office desktop killer, thats the end of the show.
Good people go to bed earlier.
And there's still nothing preventing them from changing their attitude and discontinuing support, especially when by getting their software in-use, it's easier to migrate to their platform with the existing type of software than it is to change types of software while remaining on the existing platform.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Could we get a summary that isn't like: "In an unbiased and purely 3rd party perspective Microsoft has been historically bad ..."?
I interpret this tone as: "You are an idiot that needs to be spoon fed value judgments" OR "You are an idiot, and I think I can manipulate you by disguising my opinion in here as uncontroversial, monolithic, undeniable claims".
It isn't what you're running on your box that they're interested in, anymore, it's what you're connecting to for your business layer. If they can get *nix customers connecting to Azure on .NET, I think they'd call that a win.
God, I hope that's the case. Since I won't touch cloudy services with a ten foot pole, this would mean that Microsoft will finally stop being a pain in my butt.
The ones they are using to extort from many Android-based phones, for starters.
I may be wrong but I thought the only major patent things they've been involved in lately they were pretty up front about - in fact, many Slashdotters complained at the time they were just engaging in FUD by announcing they had any patents.
The things I know of are:
- The FAT LFN patent. Not a great idea, but they never picked FAT to be a SD card file system in the first place. Can't blame them for cashing in beyond general opposition to patents.
- The package of patents covering technologies in Android - this is the one I think Slashdot's commentator consensus complained was FUD until Microsoft started approaching mobile device makers.
- VC-1, which they were upfront about during the standardization process, and coordinated with the group licensing the MPEG LA was organizing.
Where have they tried to push something as an open standard and then turned around and said "Ha ha! Gotcha! Here are these hidden patents we never told you about"?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Open source is a success. It's taken over most of the server market. The fact it's open is why it's a success - do you think PHP would ever be popular if it were closed?
The question Microsoft is asking themselves is not "How do we kill this", but "How do we monetize this?" (followed by "How far should we jump right now, and to what extent should we hold back?")
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
In Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International the US Supreme Court ruled:
merely requiring generic computer implementation fails to transform [an] abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention.
Recently, after its SCO fiasco, Microsoft's biggest gun in its ceaseless war on Linux and all things FOSS has been patent extortion. IIRC, Microsoft makes a sizable chuck of change from Android devices due to the licenses for a fuzzy bunch of patents that have never been tested for validity in a court of law.
At some point, someone with deep enough pockets to risk a spin on the roulette wheel that is the US court system in regard to patents will take on Microsoft and see if the Emperor is wearing clothes or not. Microsoft owns some very smart lawyers. The lawyers know such a challenge is inevitable. They also know there is a good chance Microsoft will lose and will have to shut down its patent extortion racket. At that point they will need a plan B. This is their baby steps towards a plan B which is way too little, way too late.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
The SDK and libraries have never been a revenue source. The development tools and software platform are the revenue sources.
Given a continued level of investment, it is unlikely that another party would overtake Microsoft as the definitive source for commercial .Net needs. On the filp side, Microsoft needs a bigger ecosystem. First party only takes them so far, and most third party efforts focus around more linux-oriented or platform-neutral stacks, with an emphasis on open source. Going more cross platform and open source is their way of trying to get the platform more relevant. If this plan succeeds, then some parties will be 'getting it for free', but those parties would have otherwise gone with a free solution.
In short, they are trying to open source just enough to provide equivalent support to free frameworks that are realistically good enough, while holding back components where there is a shred of belief that MS might possible continue to hold differentiated value.
"Embrace and extend" was the original phrase, in which a company would "embrace" a standard with "minor extensions and enhancements", eventually rendering the original standard apparently incompatible with its implementations. As a simple example, consider Microsoft Internet Explorer, which became significantly incompatible with the HTML standard it was supposedly supporting; or Microsoft's implementation of Java in a non-transportable way. Microsoft's approach was described as "Embrace, extend and extinguish" during the failed antitrust case. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you. Then you lose and kill yourself."
- Hitler (well, not really)
I never understood what that Gandhi quote is so popular, sure that's what a victory looks like out the rear view mirror but most defeats start just the same.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I'm confused - what does Microsoft see as being able to "extend" or "extinguish" by open sourcing their own products? Sure, that may be a goal if they get involved in third party products, but its pretty hard to extend and extinguish other products by being actively involved in the development of their own.
At the moment my .Net stack is looking more and more open each day, but that doesn't harm PHP, Python, Java etc because it doesn't affect them in the slightest. All it means is I'm less likely to use them because my current stack looks better and better.
If you mean they wish to extend and extinguish the entire open source movement, well thats just ridiculous - you can't force people off Python, Perl, PHP, Java etc, you can't force communities to switch wholesale to your platform, they will always go on until the platform is irrelevant, but to achieve irrelevancy in a competing product yours has to be better.
They're not really open sourcing them. The Linux version's going to be some kind of collaboration with Ximian to extend their Mono implementation. Eventually they'll be marketing along the lines of "Now that you've chosen Azure, don't you want the real thing for your .NET platform - you can't trust those hippies to have implemented it right".
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Oh please the only ones pulling a EEE is Google but the FOSSies are too busy pretending its 1999 and the desktop is still the battleground to see the buttfucking they are about to get from their supposed "friend"
TFA is beyond simple, BALMER WAS A SHITTY CEO who thought the way you win is by sticking a WinFlag on knockoffs of other people's shit. Flash? Silverlight. Java? .NET, iPod? Zune. iPad? Surface. Balmer was the Pepsi guy of CEOs who couldn't think beyond whatever was getting buzz at the moment. Compare this to Nadella that...get ready for this, its a mind blower...actually tries to give the customers what they want! Gasp! what we are seeing with Nadella is a Steve Jobs style transformation of MSFT and like Jobs Nadella is focusing on his customers. the reason why he is opening .NET is VERY simple, the way you make money on a language is support, not by waving the WinFlag so surprise surprise THAT is what he is doing!
After a decade of the Balmernator squirting his Zune as an Apple wannabe I'd say Nadella is a breath of fresh air and if his common sense moves make the FOSSies miss the Googlefucking until its too late? Bonus.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Why is parent modded troll? This is *exactly* the kind of thing Microsoft has done in the past. Not just once, but repeatedly. The most obvious one was Java, and it took a lawsuit from Sun to get Microsoft to stop trying to commandeer the platform. Microsoft then dropped Java in a big public hissy fit, and came out with .NET instead.
And there's still nothing preventing them from changing their attitude and discontinuing support
Discontinuing support for what? If it's open source then the open source philosophy of maintaining it yourself or paying somebody to do it applies. If you require corporate support for open source code then what is the point of open source at all?
Yeah... My guess is that, after this announcement, developers are going to say to themselves, "Great, now we don't have to learn how to use new tools to create software for Linux", and do all their work on Windows.
Since this is about open sourcing .Net how is it any different from Java? Do people not learn Linux-based tools to create Java programs because they can do it on Windows?
Then, in five or ten years, when everyone's using Microsoft's tools, they'll claim no one's using them to port to Linux, anyway, and drop support.
But it is open source, what would "dropping support" achieve when the source is out there?
By 'exactly', I was referring to their MO, not specifics like licensing. I thought I had been clear. Sorry about that.
> Since this is open-sourcing of their own software, please elaborate on how the final E in EEE is even theoretically possible.
In fact, the open sourcing of their own software is a necessary first step. Open source a version, encourage adoption, then create proprietary but attractive features in a future version which remain closed source, use these features to leverage their own products at the expense of others. The "embrace" part is a strategy to get competitors to use a Microsoft standard, the Extend is to create proprietary extensions to that standard, and the Extinguish is when competitors can no longer compete because users have come to rely on those proprietary features.
This is not exactly a secret.
The question becomes, does Microsoft have enough clout to do it again.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I think you are rather confused with the meaning behind EEE.
The EEE strategy of MS was harmful, because MS used its monopoly to screw up widely used open standards, thus eliminating competition at birth. This was bad not only for startups, but for consumers as well. Remember IE6?
As the article that you linked to yourself describes, there are a lot of Android versions that are based on the open source version of the OS. Google is actually giving its competitors the Android code for free, thus enabling them to enter the market, rather than shutting them out of it. Lack of other Google services is actually a feature in many of these cases (like in Chinese implementations). If you weren't allowed to use Google as a search engine in such competitor Android implementations (as if, for example, by means of a malicious code license) then *that* would be EEE, because Google would be using its search monopoly as leverage to prevent a competitor from entering the mobile OS market (as in Embrace the mobile OS technology by open-sourcing Android, Extend it with the Google search feature, and Extinguish it by showing everyone how lame those other Android phones are that don't have the Google search feature). As far as I know, this is not the case. You can even get the closed-source Google apps to play on a Kindle Fire, for example. There is definitely some bad karma created at Google for abandoning the open-source projects, but this is not a case of EEE. And on the other hand, who said that Google was obliged to invest into the open-source projects indefinitely? I'm not familiar with the exact license of each piece of Android code, but, in general, once it has been open-sourced the community will decide when it's time for the software to die. If Google stops development of an open-source app and the app dies, then it is *our fault* for not picking up where Google left off.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Google fanboy or anything, but the EEE technique that MS pioneered is *very* harmful and evil. We have to make sure we don't cry "wolf" at every sign that might resemble it, even if open-source fans (like me) have to come to the defense of a multibillion corporation like Google. Otherwise we will get no reaction when shit does in fact hit the fan, like we had with the OOXML fiasco.
Most of what you say is true except Bill Gates is definitely not out...
http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/...
Bill Gates was on the board, he's stepped down from the board to take a more hands on role within the company.
I don't think you give the man enough credit, he is the man who beat Steve Jobs and nearly drove Apple out of business...
http://www.wired.com/2009/08/d...
Microsoft with (not against) the guidence of Bill Gates are embracing open source as they have every other technological movement there has been.
When Windows is based on making the WINE extensions work better under a Windows implementation of Linux, then I will believe. Until then I will just hear Daleks shouting "Embrace", "Extend", "Exxxxxttteeerrrmmmiiinnnaaattteeee"
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
It matters. Is Microsoft embracing open source because of a change in philosophy, having committed to the principles of open source? I would assert that only a fool would believe that. So we're left with them embracing open source because deep in Redmond's bowels, they turned the crank on some Excel ROI formula, and determined that "embracing" open source gives them the greatest potential for the greatest profit ... for now.
... because that crank, they keep on a'turnin' it ... and as soon as it spits out the opposite answer, out come the knives behind open source's back, and stab stab stab ...
Should this worry us? I think it should
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
Embrace, extend, destroy. Sun Tsu's book isn't off their shelves just yet.
That said, Microsoft needs revenue, and moneyspenders tired of the BS, the poor quality, the BS, the proprietary nature, the lock-in, and more. The veneer of openness still means that Microsoft is looking for revenue, and their seeming love for open source is designed to follow the market, not some sort of philosophical shift. They're still in it for the revenue.
The trends in software and administrative support still favor strong static infrastructure, and Microsoft's IT management has a generation of schooled people that know dot-net, SQL Server, and desktop products. They learned AD, and how to make stuff the Microsoft Way.
Licensing models can't be easily ignored, and embracing them doesn't stop their principal need: more and lots of revenue, and at least some harmony. Their QA still is hideous, but it's improving, which is damning with faint praise. If they want to competitively and actively support open source/FOSS, fine. They could change that battleship of theirs tomorrow. Licensing wouldn't matter as there are armies of closed source coders dying for revenue, too. It's just that community-sourced armies of passionate coders can be not only faster, but equally as effective-- or more. It's the revenue. Follow the revenue. It's all about the revenue.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
i3 processors start at a TDP of 11.5W and are almost as fast as those 25w amd chips despite using less than half as much power. AMD chips have not been able to come remotely close to the performance per watt of Intel's chips since Conroe launched in 2006. They compete on performance per dollar, not power efficiency.
Perhaps it's 1 reason device makers are shipping devices without removal storage.
No sd card, no fat patent licensing required.
What about when the next version comes out?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."